3D Printing Insider: 3D Printing Bones

Hmmm another couple of years and they’ll be able to replace the discs in our neck with REAL discs… YAHOO!

(Forbes) Kevin Shakeshaff, a professor of pharmacy at the University of Nottingham inEngland, has been working on technology that can “print” a custom bone parts. An image of a jawbone defect can be fed into a computer and a replacement can be printed to precisely fill the defect using the patient’s own cells, Shakeshaff explains. “The tissues of our body are structured at the level of single cells – using 3D printing, we can position cells in precise places.”

To print this type of bone replacement, the 3D bio-printer creates a scaffold in the bone shape and coats it with adult human stem cells, which can develop into many different tissue types